A Stonington organization is spearheading a campaign, to be announced formally today, to save groundfish stocks simultaneously in the Gulf of Maine and the coastal communities that were built around this once-robust fishery.

The centerpiece of the “Downeast Initiative,” as the campaign is known, is a push to overhaul the way the federal government manages groundfish in the gulf, especially off the coast of Hancock and Washington counties.

In particular, the campaign seeks to move away from the broad, regional management scheme that aims to prevent overfishing of cod, haddock and other groundfish by severely limiting the number of days fishermen can ply the waters. Instead, campaign organizers advocate “community-based ecosystem management” in which fishing regulations will vary based on local biological and economic factors.

Led by Penobscot East Resource Center, the Downeast Initiative aims to get local fishermen more involved in the effort to rebuild groundfish populations and then manage those stocks sustainably to allow small-scale fishing. PERC, which is based in Stonington, works with local communities on fisheries management, education and science.

Ted Ames, a longtime fishermen whose academic research into fish stocks has earned him international acclaim, described the initiative as “the first real effort to not simply restrict a dying fishery but actually bring it back and ensure a future for the next generation of fishermen.”

“More and more people are realizing that ‘Days at Sea’ is simply not working for this part of the Gulf of Maine,” Ames, who has worked with PERC, said in a statement. “It’s going to take a very different approach and the cooperation of fishermen and environmentalists to turn this around.”

So far, the “community-based” or “area management” proposal has garnered support from a diverse collection of interests.

The Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, the Mid-Coast Fishermen’s Association, the group IFISH, the Island Institute, The Nature Conservancy, The Ocean Conservancy and the Conservation Law Foundation have joined with PERC to create the Area Management Coalition to lobby for the changes.

Federal fishing regulators already are looking at area management as one possible solution to the groundfish crisis in the Gulf of Maine. But the next major test will come next month when the New England Fishery Management Council votes whether to continue considering area management as a possible alternative to the days-at-sea system.

The current commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, George LaPointe, as well as three representatives of Maine’s fishing industry serve on the council.

During an interview last week, Ames said there used to be “a couple of hundred” fishermen between Vinalhaven and Eastport working with groundfish. But under the days-at-sea system, only large commercial boats – often sailing out of Gloucester, Mass., or Portland – can afford to chase the pockets of groundfish around the gulf, Ames said.

As a result, Ames is aware of only one person between Vinalhaven and the Canadian border who works with groundfish exclusively, and he often fishes outside of the area.

Many of the fishermen still active are focused heavily on lobster, which is Maine’s primary fishery. But that dependence on lobster, which accounted for 70 percent of the value of all species landed in Maine in 2004, makes PERC executive director Robin Alden very uneasy.

Should coastal Maine’s lobster populations crash, as they have off the coast of Long Island, N.Y., and parts of southern New England, the effects could be economically devastating for coastal fishing communities.

Alden, a former state commissioner of marine resources, said she hopes area management will help restore a local abundance and diversity to the gulf so that local fishermen “who are coming home every night” can continue to fish and support the local economy.

For more information on the Downeast Initiative, go to http://www.penobscoteast.org/